I know. I’m too excited for my own good sometimes. But boy, oh boy, do I have something great in store for you.
Becoming an entrepreneur has been one of the most fulfilling and challenging experiences of my life. And for those two reasons alone, I know I’m meant to be the director of my own show. But as with every entrepreneurial journey, each new level presents its own new “devil” so to speak.
Getting the ball rolling is our first real challenge, but once we’ve got things going, we come to a point where we have got to start growing. But between client work, phone calls, e-mails, bookkeeping, blogging, tweeting, and trying to have a life, how can there possibly be room for more?!?
It’s overwhelming at times, but until you can afford to leverage the activities in your business that you don’t want to do, you’ve got to find a way manage everything.
Of course one of the fastest ways to start leveraging your time in your business is to hire help. And the fastest way to afford help is by generating more income. And the easiest way to generate income is to sell more stuff. But if you’re going to sell more stuff, then you’ve got to do more marketing!
Unfortunately, as solopreneurs it’s easy for us slack off when it comes to marketing because we have so many other things to do. Ironically, marketing is the very activity that is going to help you grow your business, and provide you with continued success.
Without consistent marketing, we can find ourselves in a precarious financial position with an empty pipeline, and who wants to be there?
If you’re part of the Kick-A$$ Tips Crew, then you’ll remember that I offered free 20-minute coaching sessions (called mini-biz makeovers) this summer. And I have to tell you that it’s been a blast to help some of you plow through little obstacles that have been keeping you stuck in your business.
Because these 20-minute coaching sessions have been so awesome, and are perfect real-life examples of challenges that we all face at some time or another, I knew I had to share them with you. So, over the next few weeks I’ll be sharing the highlights and key takeaways from these mini-biz makeover sessions along with the recorded session itself.
An absolute whiz at removing all technical anxiety from the many aspects of running a successful coaching business, Pat helps coaches find the time to do more of what they actually want to do – coach.
Pat has done an incredible job of getting her business off the ground, and getting established as a reputable V.A. service. But as with most solopreneurs, she is entering a growth phase that is requiring her to “get the word out” about who she is and what Vision V.A. Business Services can offer to coaches.
So, “getting the word out” (a.k.a marketing) is what we are tackling today.
Marlee: We are with Pat Romain. And Pat can you tell me the name of your VA company so I don’t mispronounce it. I always want to call it Vizzeeooon VA, like its French, but I don’t know.
Pat: No, it’s just Vizion (sounds like vision) VA.
Marlee: Oh, well I thought Vizion was so French and sassy, and being that you’re from Montreal it fit. I guess I made that up in my head, anyway Vision VA works great. So today we are going to talk about how you can market your VA services, and your business more aggressively and get a little stronger with what you’re doing. And based on the survey that you provided to me prior to this call, you said that your current marketing activities are social media, blogging, and your newsletter. Is that right?
Pat: Yeah
Marlee: And, are you doing anything else other than these things?
Pat: I attend conferences. Actually, just one.
Marlee: Okay, so those are your primary methods for marketing?
Pat: Yes.
Social Media is NOT An Immediate Lead Generation Tool
Marlee: Okay, great. So, I just wanted to mention a couple of things about social media, blogging, and your newsletter because they are phenomenal components to a marketing strategy, but ironically they’re actually not the best immediate lead generation tactics themselves.
Specifically, what I mean by that is if you’re looking to obtain a client, let’s say within the next 10 days, blogging and social media probably are not the best way to go about that, because they are very time intensive, right?
Pat: Yeah.
Marlee: And basically, they’re there to help establish you as an authority in your field and they’re there to help you establish connections with people. But you know once you make that connection, you have to establish a relationship with them. And for the most part, you might follow someone on Twitter who is in your ideal customer base, but they may not even notice you until you actually start engaging with them and have a conversation them, and that might take months for some people, or longer, so those strategies alone are not going to be effective enough for you to grow your business the way you want to, based on what you said you wanted your ideal business to look like.
So, I think there are some more traditional strategies that you could put in play that are going to work really well for you.
Pat: Okay.
Marlee: First, let’s talk about some things that I think that you could hone in on a little more tightly in what you’re doing right now.
Pat: Okay.
Marlee: Your content is awesome. The stuff you’re doing in terms of your social media, your blogging, and your newsletter – all that stuff is great, but one thing that I did notice in looking at your content is that it has a very generic target.
That is, you talk about things like getting started with Facebook, or creating a Facebook fan page. Or you talk about “The Benefits of Tele-seminars.” All of these things are things that may be potentially interesting to people you want to target, but they don’t necessarily specifically target. Do you see what I mean?
Pat: Yeah
Marlee: It seems to me like the things that you talk about are a little bit broader than the audience that you appear to want. And the reason I say that is because you said in your survey that your target audience are clients that are not necessarily tech savvy, correct?
Pat: Yeah.
Marlee: And they are primarily coaches, correct?
Pat: Exactly.
Marlee: Okay, so for somebody who’s not really that tech savvy and is in coaching. The things that you talk about might actually be over their head.
Pat: Okay. I didn’t realize that.
Marlee: Do you see that there is a little bit of “a disconnect” between the content that you write, and the people you actually want serve?
You know, because maybe to them they’re thinking “Okay I’d like to get started with Facebook fan page!” But if they are not really tech savvy, even talking about, they may not even understand the purpose of that, because they might be so far be behind where you’re coming from.
Or like “The Benefits of Tele-seminars”, if they’re not tech savvy they might see the word tele-seminar, and think “Oh, forget it. I can’t do that, that’s too technical. I don’t even know how you would do a tele-seminar.” Now, it’s very easy, right? But for your target audience, they may perceive that differently.
So I think that you might want to get a little bit more specific about the things that you’re talking about and how they affect your target audience.
So an example would be here in your title on this blog post “Getting the Party Started on Your Facebook Fan Page.” Maybe this is more directed to your target audience by saying “How to Create a Facebook Fan Page that Will Help Grow Your Coaching Business- If You Don’t Even Use Facebook Yet.”
In other words, something that alludes to not being tech-savvy.
Pat: Mmmm.
Marlee: Does that work for you? Do you see where I’m coming from?
Pat: I see where you’re coming from, but I’ve had some reactions to that post. From people that I have as clients, and people that I want as clients.
Marlee: What kind of reaction did you have?
Pat: They didn’t know how to get the conversation going on their Facebook Fan Page, and these tips were really good for them. They were happy about it. I don’t know if it helps me, because you know now I’m telling them to do it. But you know, it is what it is.
Marlee: It definitely helps you. And I think that the content is good, right? But only thing is that the people who responded to the post, the people that found it helpful, are people you’ve already captured in your audience, right?
Pat: Right.
Marlee: So what about those people that you haven’t reached yet? They might feel like that’s above their head.
Pat: Okay.
Marlee: For the people that are “less tech savvy,” you might want to be communicating in an even more straightforward type of way. And I’m only referring to your title here. I’m not talking about the content of your blog post.
Your title needs to be more specific. So like “The Benefits of Tele-seminars.” That’s also a very generic broad title, the content is great, but how does that specifically appeal to the coaching clients that you want to attract.
Pat: Okay. I get it now.
Marlee: Okay, so your key take away in all of this is just the you need to get super specific. For example when I look at your title tags, or look at the things you’re doing in SEO, I can see that you want to attract coaches. But, when I look at your content I don’t necessarily see that you’re specifically speaking to them.
Pat: Okay
Marlee: So I want you to try to match those two things together, because I think that will help you draw them in more closely. And this goes for everything in your offerings.
So for example, I was looking at some of the packages that you created, and your packages are awesome. But again, maybe they need to speak specifically to the needs of coaches. So for example, under your services tab, you list the things that you can offer, and then under your packages, you offer specific things like creating a newsletter, or helping them launch their specific products, or creating a blog something like that, but maybe some of the things that coaches have more difficulty with, if they’re not tech savvy, are things like setting up calendar tools, or setting up site maintenance.
These are the kinds of more technical things that maybe freak people out. Maybe setting up webinars, or actually getting ready to launch a tele-seminar. So maybe you can create packages that speak a little bit more to the technical aspects of that.
Pat: Okay this is great, because these are exactly the kinds of things that I’m doing for them.
Marlee: Awesome.
Pat: Yeah, but I didn’t match it to my website. It’s just stuff that I’m doing because they come to me and they tell me “Well, I know you are a VA, and I know you have a VA team, so I want to create a tele-seminar, or webinar, or whatever.” And, I’m like “Okay great!” But I don’t really show that these are things I do on my website.
Marlee: Exactly. Because by doing that, whoever your target person is(“the non-tech savvy coach”) comes to your site and says “Oh my gosh! She’s my angel. She does tele-seminars set up, and my webinar setups, and I don’t have to worry about anything. I can just pay her, and I can just get on the call and do my work, and she’s going to do all of that for me.”
So if you have that readily available for them to see, it makes it that much easier for them to make that choice.
Pat: Okay.
Marlee: Okay, so some more strategic ideas, or I should say tactics, about things that you can do. One thing that I think would be really neat for you to do on your website that would kind of open up the scope of the way that you can network online, would be to create something like a coach’s showcase.
And the way that I envision this, and of course I want you to take it and put your own appeal and feel to it (you can accept or reject it) but the idea here is for you to pitch coaches directly, your ideal clients directly, to answer a few questions for you about what they do, and how they help people. And then, you know how people will create a Twitter Friday Follow blog post featuring one person, and they write a little bio about that person, they ask a few questions, and then they post it to their site and promote it to their social networks.
Pat: Yeah.
Marlee: Well you could do this in the same way, but it could be called a “coaches showcase.” So, for example, give me a coach that you know of off the top your head that you work with.
Pat: Okay, I have someone I’m working with right now. I have a call with her in a few minutes. Julie Downey.
Marlee: Okay so let’s say Julie is amazing, and she works with women businesses. Let’s say that hypothetically, because I’m not familiar with her and I don’t know what she does. So you could create a showcase for her on your site. For example, on a Friday, and then share it out with your social networks.
So this is a way for you to network with people who are in your ideal target market by showcasing their work, and you can do this week after week after week, and this will give you (I don’t want to say an excuse, but that is what it is really) to reach out to people who are in your target market and say “Hey listen, I would like to showcase you on my website. Would that be Okay with you? I’d like to ask you a few questions, and let people know you’re that out there, right?”
Pat: Mmm,hmm.
Marlee: And, it will also kind of build this community of coaches around you. So that is something that you could do, and you can showcase them for different kinds of coaches: a fitness coach, a business coach, lifestyle coaches, creative coaches things like that.
Pat: Okay.
Marlee: So here are some specific tactics that I think you can try, because if you really want to have immediate leads, if you really want to be able to find a way to grow your business as quickly as possible, ironically, the web is of one of the slower routes that you can take.
Pat: Yeah. It’s true.
Marlee: So I’m going to give you a couple of things that I think you can do immediately that will help you acquire clients within the next 30 days.
Using Tactful & Appropriate Direct Outreach
And that first one is going to be direct outreach. And that is to go and pitch coaches directly. And there’s a variety of ways that you can do this. You can do this through their website; you can do this through LinkedIn. But first you want to research them, you want to figure out specifically how you can help them, and then in your pitch to them you’re going to tell them specifically how you think you can help them, and how you can benefit them.
Now of course there’s a proper way to do this, and there’s a very improper way to do it. And so if it’s something that you feel uncomfortable with it’s probably not the way to go about it. Use that as a guide in determining how you are going to pitch people. So maybe you want to establish a relationship with them to social media first simply by connecting with them.
Maybe leaving them a message so that you get their attention, and then you can follow that up with a direct outreach – so a properly composed e-mail or message that you could send to them. And you can open that e-mail by saying “Hi Jane, I recently connected with you on Twitter and I thought blah, blah, blah.”
Dumping Mindsets That Hold You Back From Marketing Effectively
Pat: I actually use to do that a lot. And I got some clients from that. Then I felt like I didn’t want to do this anymore. But that was for the time being, it doesn’t mean that I’m not going to start, because I have a very nicely composed email, and I only contacted and reached out to people that I met, either in-person or I have a relationship with. Or I’m participating in some kind of program with, or I really think I can help them. I don’t do cold anything.
Marlee: Right.
Pat: But, I don’t know. For some reason I stopped. But I’ll get back to it.
Marlee: Why do you think you stopped?
Pat: Umm. I stopped, the first thing was like I felt like I was begging. So, I was like, Okay this is this feeling. Because I’m really into my feelings – a lot. This isn’t feeling right to me, so I need to stop. And I started over again, and then I was like “Okay maybe I need to take a break from this.” You know, pitching to people. And I did get a really good client from that, and she is still with me. And so it’s a tactic that really works.
Marlee: It does.
Pat: But maybe I need to revise the way that I approach, since I’m moving and growing.
Marlee: Yeah, I think you definitely want to create an approach that is going to be comfortable for you, but I think you also want to think about your mindset behind it because I think you said something that was really important, and that is that you felt like you were begging.
Pat: Yeah.
Marlee: And the truth is that you’re actually providing an incredible service to this person by offering to help them in a way that maybe they just haven’t found the time to reach out for help. For example, imagine this person’s on the other side of their computer screen and are going, “Oh my gosh, I just wish I could find somebody help me with this. I just wish I had someone who I could delegate this to. I don’t have the time to find a VA and to go out there and figure out if this is somebody that I can trust. I’m so overwhelmed. Let me just continue doing the things I need to do to get by.”
Pat: Yeah.
Marlee: And they are not reaching out because they’re stuck.
Pat: They don’t know!
Marlee: Yeah. Exactly!
They’re stuck behind their wall, so by reaching out to them and saying “Hey I think I can help you grow your business in this way. You’re doing them a favor, right? You are actually helping them by bridging the gap between them having to go out and find you, and figure out if you’re really a reliable resource.
I think that this so common especially with solo entrepreneurs. We feel like going out and directly contacting people in that way can be overly aggressive, and it can feel like pushy ,but the truth of the matter is that if you do it in a way that resonates well with you, in terms of the way that you’ve laid out whatever it is you’re saying in your e-mail, and you’re being truly helpful, and you’re truly looking to solve a problem, the worst the person can say is I’m not interested right now. And you can’t feel bad about that.
Pat: No, I never do.
Marlee: It’s definitely something that you should consider. Especially since you have had success with it, so that’s great.
Okay, so I’m going to start flying through the rest of these since we are getting close to time here.
Pat: Yeah
Speaking Events: (Think Meetup Groups, BNI Groups, Chamber of Commerce Groups)
Marlee: Attending networking events as a speaker. You could talk about productivity. You can talk about how people are using virtual systems to leverage their businesses in everyday living. So you might be talking to coaches that don’t necessarily have an online presence, but still have a coaching business. And you can show them how to figure out how to get to that place. So this will set you up as an authority, and talking in front of a group will be a great way for you to do that.
Referral Partnerships: Look for businesses who serve your audience.
Marlee: You can look at other businesses that are serving coaches and develop a referral partnership. For example, look a lot of the larger scale people that have like online training programs where they’re teaching people how to do online marketing, or how to develop an online presence, and you serve a lot of those types of activities.
For example you do the newsletters, you help people launch. So these people might pay for these high-end courses to learn how to do this, to learn how to launch online businesses so to speak, and yet they’re not technically savvy enough to get it all done themselves.
So if you partner with someone who’s got a list of 100,000 people that want to build websites and start online businesses you can say “Hi, I’d like to be referral partner for you. I can help the people that you are serving actually be more successful, because instead of you telling them all you need to go out and start a website, and then they go home and they never get it done, because they don’t know what to do. You can help them be more successful by actually helping them carry out and implement what they are learning, right?”
Pat: Yeah.
Marlee: Believe it or not free advertising on sites like Craigslist, and the Startup Nation classified ads, Entrepreneur.com classified ads, and Sales Spider, which is another online networking professional’s website, are great resources for virtual assistants to publish little classified ads that let people know that your services are available.
What I found is that you need to strategically pick the cities you post in. For example, on Craigslist you need to specifically strategically pick the cities that you want to put your ad in, so that you’re attracting the type of people most likely to use your services. So that’s probably places like, if you’re focusing on the United States, places like D.C., Miami, New York, San Fran, places like that.
Pat: Okay.
Marlee: Also, sending personalized letters and asking for referrals from your current clients, because your current clients are great resource. They are a testament to who you are and the work do. So you want to be able to come out and ask for referrals, and then follow-up, and follow-through.
Take Action – Now!
Marlee: And so here’s your action step, Okay. I want you to create a 30-day marketing calendar.
And what I want you to do, is each day, I want you to execute pre-identified marketing tactics. So I want you to pick like three or four the tactics, that we talked about to today, and then I want you to plan out each step you need to execute them.
And I want you to lay them out in advance for 30 days. Because a lot of times we know what we need to do for marketing, but we don’t do because we become so overwhelmed with all the other things that we do — or we just don’t do them. So if you set aside the time and say “Okay, this hour I’m going to focus on writing a pitch to one person, or this hour I’m going to post a new ad in craigslist.”
Whatever it is, do those things for the next 30 days consistently, and then see what your results are like.
Pat: Yeah. It’s true. We know what we have to do, but it’s actually doing the day-to-day marketing. Sometimes apart from newsletter publishing and the blog posts we know we have to do every week, we are like “Okay, that’s it.”
Marlee: Exactly! It’s easy to let yourself off the hook, right? So the reason that I say plan for 30 days, and write out every single step – I mean take a couple of hours and write every single step 30 days – and put it in your calendar is because you can’t avoid it then.
Pat: No
Marlee: Because you know what you need to do, you know the time that you’ve allocated to do it, and you just have to get it done. And if you can do that, you’re going to be much more likely to see the results of that, because you can’t say “Oh, something came up and I can’t get to it, or I did my blog post this week that’s good enough.”
And here’s the thing, I like to say for 30 days because when you do something for 30 days it tends to become a habit for you.
Pat: Exactly!
Marlee: And if you can get through one 30 day session of doing this, it’s going to become autopilot and I think that that’s going to serve you incredibly well in your business.
Pat: Okay, perfect those are great tips.
Marlee: Great, I’m glad that you find them useful.
{ 17 comments… read them below or add one }
Hey Marlee,
It can definitely be a challenge when you’re a solo act and need to find time in the day to do everything. I agree that marketing is what often gets left behind. I think it’s important to be consistent and realize that you don’t have to do a lot at once if you just do it regularly. It all adds up.
Derek MaakMichael Fiore Text The Romance Back Text Examples
You are absolutely right, Derek. Consistency makes all the difference.
Focused client advice. You get right to the point. Curious to know which of your tips Pat Romain acted on and the impact doing so had on her business.
Glad I came across your website tonight. You have a wealth of value-add information.
Denise
writemoneyinc.com
This is very inspirational and I think this can help a lot of people then…
MichaelCompare Computer Processors Before Buying
Hi…Marketing is not really easy but I think it will be, thanks to your post…
AngelaHow to Grow Muscle Fast
I think that this is really interesting and I think that this is very easy to follow. Anyone can do business by just following these steps and enjoying life having online business.
RonGynecomastia Symptoms
This is so awesome Marlee. You always have that little spin that’s necessary to get the creativity flowing.
As usual I’m very impressed,and I know Pat is going to reap the benefits of your knowledge!
John GarrettHow to Deal With Stupid Clowns – PT 2
JG! What’s good my friend?! Thanks for your feedback. It was a fun call to do. I’ll have more of these coming over the next few weeks, so I hope you’ll check those out too. As always, so nice to see you here.
Hey Marlee I listening to the entire business coaching call with Pat Romain and I was extremely impressed (not that I didn’t think you were any good) with your level of professionalism, perspective and the level of insight that you provided to Pat.
I love your idea about the 30 day Make Marketing Calendar. I too think ti’s easy to feel like you wrote a blog post for the day or week and feel like you’ve done what you needed to do for the week.
I definitely took some golden nuggets of information from this post and I will you can count on my referral.
Hector AvellanedaCheck Out My Plan For The New “My Pro Business” Category, Here On IEC!
Hi Hector!
Thank you so much for your kind words. I’m glad you found the call insightful, and I appreciate your stamp of approval. I’ve got a series of these session on deck, so I hope you’ll come back for more “in the trenches” nuggest. So great to see you here.
Marketing is one of the most important factors that a business should have…Thanks a lot for sharing this post…
Clark MinnHow to Prevent Unhealthy Weight Gain During Pregnancy
- JK Allen :Glad to share.
Thanks for the experience Marlee, I really enjoyed our session and thanks for all the great tips
PatSizzlin’ Summer Slow Down
It’s was my pleasure, Pat! Make sure you report back on any results you have with whatever you decide to implement. I know you’ll kick butt!
Its really great reading a post like this. It show’s how enthusiastic you are in the field that you choose. It only shows that when you are happy with what your doing. Every thing will be fulfilling. Thanks for sharing your experience with all your reader it really fun.I’ll be back for more
anne_fHow to win the lottery
“Becoming an entrepreneur has been one of the most fulfilling and challenging experiences of my life.”
You were right, being an entrepreneur is very fulfilling and challenging. You are the one who drives your life and decisions and the one who is responsible for all of the aspects of your decisions. I have experience it once during my secondary school. In order for me to survived studying need to make a living to pay my tuition.
But what I know then was just very basic and now you have shared with so much information. Thanks for the post I enjoyed.
coin counters
http://www.betterbusinesselectronics.com/Coin-Counters-c26/
I enjoyed listening to the call. Marlee you are dynamic and have a great way of seeing things and make what may be uncomfortable or complex, seem simple to implement.
I think the Coaches Showcase is a great way to to build interest and exposure from all angles.
Pat – thanks for allowing us all to learn from your session with Marlee!
Jk AllenKeeping Momentum: A Hustler Knows Yesterday Ended Last Night
Hi JK!
Thanks for your feedback. It’s hard to really get a slam dunk takeaway in 20 minutes, but Pat and I managed. I’ll be looking forward to hearing about her results with respect to the things that she implements. Glad you found the call useful.